U.S. President Donald Trump announced Wednesday his long-awaited plan to impose what he’s calling “retaliatory” tariffs on imports coming from dozens of countries — but the White House said there will be no more levies applied to Canada than what has previously been announced.
Trump said however that he is going ahead with a 25 per cent tariff on “all foreign-made” automobiles as of midnight Wednesday, which could have severe implications for the Canadian auto sector.
The White House said that tariff rate will apply to Canadian-made passenger vehicles, but there is a caveat — it will only be levied on the value of all non-U.S. content in that automobile.
Trump also said he would apply “a minimum baseline tariff of 10 per cent” on all goods coming into the U.S., with rates higher than that for some countries that the president said have supposedly been more egregious about ripping off the Americans.
In a fact sheet disseminated to reporters after Trump’s announcement, the White House said Canada will not be subjected to that additional baseline tariff rate because the previously announced border-related tariffs will continue to apply instead.
Trump slapped a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods (and 10 per cent on energy) last month, but made some exceptions for importers who can prove the products they’re bringing in from Canada are compliant with the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement (USMCA).
Still, Trump singled out Canada for criticism when announcing the latest tariff regime, repeating his oft-cited falsehood that the U.S. somehow “subsidizes” this country by $200 billion a year. The U.S. trade deficit with Canada — which is largely driven by cheap oil imports — is much smaller than that.
“You gotta work for yourselves,” Trump said of Canada. “We subsidize a lot of countries, keep them going and keep them in business.”
“Our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,” Trump said. “They rip us off, it’s so pathetic. Now, we’re going to charge.”
Sharp price increases feared
Trump said the tariffs are meant to “supercharge our domestic industrial base” and force companies to make more products in the U.S., but they also risk prompting a brutal economic slowdown as consumers and businesses will soon face sharp price hikes as a result of the new taxes.
It’s Trump’s latest broadside against Canada, its one-time ally and free-trading partner.
In the roughly 10 weeks he’s been president, Trump has been on a rampage against Canada, levying tariffs to supposedly spur action on drugs and migrants at the border, imposing steep tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, spreading misinformation about the dairy sector, threatening the country’s sovereignty with near-daily “51st state” taunts and repeatedly saying the Americans need nothing from Canada despite trade data that shows that’s patently false.
Those persistent attacks and insults have damaged bilateral relations. Some Canadians are boycotting American goods, pulling travel plans to the U.S. en masse and booing the American national anthem at sporting events, actions that were thought unthinkable only a few months ago.
How to handle Trump, his tariffs and the takeover threats have also become the central issue of the upcoming federal election campaign.
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